Yttrium (thing)

Look, before I even start talking about yttrium, let's cut the crap. I know all you want is the 'down and dirty.' The really juicy stories and inside information about yttrium. You don't care that yttrium's symbol is "Y", its atomic number is 39, and that its atomic weight is 88.90589. You don't give a rat's ass that its density is 4.47 g/cm3 (at 293 K) or that its molar volume (atomic volume) is 19.8 cm3/mol. You want to know all the dirty little secrets about yttrium (because you are a perv). You want to know the answers to questions such as

Yttrium is stable in air. It is silvery-metallic in appearance. Turnings of the metal combust at around 400 °C, and if yttrium is divided finely it becomes unstable in air. Yttrium is found in rare earth minerals and in uranium ore, but is not found naturally as a free element. It is commercially manufactured from monazite and bastnasite, in a reaction with calcium.

To produce yttrium in the safety (and comfort) of your own home, obtain some yttrium fluoride, and react it with calcium. You get:

2YF3 + 3Ca -> 2Y + 3 Ca3F2

It is of course, of unestimable interest to know that, naturally, yttrium exists as only one isotope, Y-89. The other isotopes are unstable, all but four (Y-87, Y-88, Y-90 and Y-91) having a half-life of less than a day.

Due to public demand, I will list several isotopes with their respective half-lives:

Yttrium was discovered by Johan Gadolin in 1794. It was discovered in a mine near Ytterby, a village in Sweden. This little village (where, at the time of writing, the sky appears to be overcast according to a prominent weather site, and the temperatures a not-so-warm 14 °C (not to be used for navigational purposes)), is not too far from Stockholm. In this mine, Gadolin discovered Yttria (as you can see, they were very creative name-wise). Incidentally, due to a severe vowel shortage, Ytterby also gave its name to three other other elements: ytterbium, terbium and erbium, but that is the subject of another (and no less exciting) node. In 1828, Friedrich Wohler isolated yttrium oxide, and in 1843 Mosander showed that yttria was actually a combination of oxides of three elements, yttrium, erbium and terbium (good times, good times). Today, yttria refers only to yttrium oxide.

99.9% pure yttrium is currently going for about $140/kg, less if you order a large amount. Several sites say the price is $75/oz, but hey, my figure is a quote from an actual dealer (true fact, and not as interesting as it would seem).